Twitter sued for 'breaking' UK super injunction. Oh yes.

We’ve been watching the British legal system turn itself into knots for the last couple of weeks, largely due to the ability of Twitter users to break just about any legal ‘super injunction’ a ‘celebrity’ (usually footballers) has on the reporting of their private life (usually affairs). So far so normal for Twitter. What’s a super injunction? It’s when someone rich (these things are very expensive) takes out an injunction on the press that not only stops them reporting something but also stops them reporting that the injunction even exists. That makes it ‘super’, which of course it is anything but.

But today the story took a new turn when it emerged that Twitter Inc. itself is being sued. Oh yes. They are going there.

The person bringing the action is referred to in court documents as “CTB”. In addition a list of Twitter users are also being sued, though its not known who yet as the court documents are confidential.

The latter are called “persons unknown responsible for the publication of information” on Twitter.

CTB happens to be the initials used by the courts in another, separate lawsuit involving an athlete. In that case, the athlete won an order banning the media from publishing stories about his alleged affair with a reality TV star and a block on identifying him.

There is a particular Twitter account (which for legal reasons we can’t refer to or link to alas) which on May 8 posted a series of tweets which looked plausibly like a list of the super injunctions brought largely by celebrities which have got the press in a fever.

As far as we know Twitter has yet to respond, but we’re reaching out to them for comment.